Garrett in Wedlock: 7

I really enjoyed this book and relished its smartness (not cleverness). Paul Mandelbaum deftly walks that near-invisible line that bridges the funny and the emotional. I could (and would despite myself) laugh out loud while reading this book and still at the end be struck in my gut by how much of my sympathy the characters had earned. As a novel in stories, this book does a great job of becoming a whole 'nother thing out of its disparate parts. I was charmed by the many narrative voices here--form and content in congruity.

This book was a great read in so many ways: the characters, whose wonderful eccentricities subtly served up a humorous, but gentle picture of the human condition -- deftly portrayed themes of love, pride, insecurity, longing and compassion within a well-paced and fabulously written series of charming and unexpected short stories. If you like David Sedaris, Charles Baxter, or Jhumpa Lahiri, you'll enjoy this collection of personal trials, every-man style explorations, psychological observations and simple modern-day, familial mayhem. The book's fluid style makes it a fast and vastly readable novel. Can't recommend it enough to fans of fiction.

This is a wonderful book which I read with relish and delight. These stories are deep, grown-up, funny, and told with an absolutely satisfying emotional precision and clarity. Paul Mandelbaum is a big-hearted and generous author - he loves his characters and his empathy for their trials, weaknesses, gifts is palpable. It seems he loves life for its messiness, chaos, unexpected joys. He is my new favorite author and I look forward to reading his next book.

This remarkable collection of stories really does read like a novel--the stories are sequential and the characters develop throughout the book. The characters are quirky but real. The stories explore with humor and warmth the experience of blending families, of making marriages and stepparenting work. The author manages to crawl inside the skin of all his characters and make them ring true. It offers a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Think John Irving and Ann Tyler.